Yu-Gi-Oh!'s Weirdest Manga is Basically Back to the Future
The strangest Yu-Gi-Oh! spinoff manga has a twist that makes it a bizarre version of Back to the Future. The Yu-Gi-Oh! and Back to the Future franchises are about as different as two franchises can be, but the fifth Yu-Gi-Oh! manga, Yu-Gi-Oh! Arc-V, somehow managed to combine the two. The anime version of Yu-Gi-Oh! Arc-V was already one of the stranger entries in the franchise, but the manga somehow surpassed it in terms of weirdness.
The Yu-Gi-Oh! Arc-V anime and manga have a different relationship to each other than most anime and manga adaptations. The Arc-V manga actually began after the anime had started and instead of being a direct adaptation of the anime, it tells a very different story with many of the same characters. The Yu-Gi-Oh! Arc-V anime focuses on Yuya Sakaki and his friends as they get embroiled in an interdimensional war. Over the course of the series, Yuya meets three alternate versions of himself from the other dimensions and they discover that they share a mysterious connection that is central to the reason the different dimensions exist. It turns out that the four dimensions were originally one united dimension until an evil duelist Zarc tried to destroy it. In order to stop him, a girl named Ray split the world into four separate dimensions, causing Zarc to split into Yuya and his counterparts and splitting Ray herself into four versions as well, with one of them becoming Yuya’s romantic interest Yuzu. While this is all incredibly convoluted and bizarre, the manga’s story is arguably even stranger.
In the Yu-Gi-Oh! Arc-V manga, written by Naohito Miyoshi, the interdimensional war plot line is dropped in favor of time travel. In this version of the story, Yuya’s father Yusho sends him back in time to stop the omnipotent G.O.D. card from destroying the world. Yuya still has his three counterparts who occasionally swap places with him in duels. However, it is eventually revealed that these are Yuya’s brothers who have managed to accompany him to the past. Other characters are also different from the anime, but the most drastic difference is Yuzu's character. At the end of the series, mere pages after Yuzu confesses to Yuya that she loves him, it is revealed that Yuzu is actually Yuya’s mother.
This is a shocking twist that recontextualizes Yuya and Yuzu’s relationship. There are subtle hints that Yuya and his brothers kn0w who Yuzu is all along, reminiscent of how Marty McFly knows who his mother Lorraine is when he travels back in time in Back to the Future. However, in that movie the audience also knows the relationship between Marty and Lorraine, creating a sense of dramatic irony as Lorraine interacts with him. The Yu-Gi-Oh! Arc-V manga on the other hand chooses to leverage its premise for a twist that hits all the harder based on pre-existing conceptions of the characters from the anime. And of course, it asks the question of what if a set of siblings travelled back in time to meet their parents instead of just one.
Part of the reason this twist was so shocking is that Back to the Future and Yu-Gi-Oh! are such incongruous series. One is a live-action American sci-fi movie trilogy, and the other is a manga and anime franchise largely used as a vehicle to sell trading cards. This contrast is a large reason why Yu-Gi-Oh!’s bizarre version of Back to the Future is so surprising and entertaining.